# 1840 in the United States

Events from the year 1840 in the United States.

## Incumbents
### Federal government

* President: Martin Van Buren (D-New York)
* Vice President: Richard M. Johnson (D-Kentucky)
* Chief Justice: Roger B. Taney (Maryland)
* Speaker of the House of Representatives: Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter (W-Virginia)
* Congress: 26th
* Governors and lieutenant governors
* Governors
* Governor of Alabama: Arthur P. Bagby (Democratic)
* Governor of Arkansas: James Sevier Conway (Democratic) (until November 4), Archibald Yell (Democratic) (starting November 4)
* Governor of Connecticut: William W. Ellsworth (Whig)
* Governor of Delaware: Cornelius P. Comegys (Whig)
* Governor of Georgia: Charles J. McDonald (Democratic)
* Governor of Illinois: Thomas Carlin (Democratic)
* Governor of Indiana: David Wallace (Whig) (until December 9), Samuel Bigger (Whig) (starting December 9)
* Governor of Kentucky: Charles A. Wickliffe (Whig) (until September 2), Robert P. Letcher (Whig) (starting September 2)
* Governor of Louisiana: André B. Roman (Whig)
* Governor of Maine: John Fairfield (Democratic)
* Governor of Maryland: William Grason (Democratic)
* Governor of Massachusetts: Edward Everett (Whig) (until January 18), Marcus Morton (Democratic) (starting January 18)
* Governor of Michigan: Stevens T. Mason (Democratic) (until January 7), William Woodbridge (Whig) (starting January 7)
* Governor of Mississippi: Alexander G. McNutt (Democratic)
* Governor of Missouri: Lilburn W. Boggs (Democratic) (until November 16), Thomas Reynolds (Democratic) (starting November 16)
* Governor of New Hampshire: John Page (Democratic)
* Governor of New Jersey: William Pennington (Whig)
* Governor of New York: William H. Seward (Whig)
* Governor of North Carolina: Edward Bishop Dudley (Whig)
* Governor of Ohio: Wilson Shannon (Democratic) (until December 16), Thomas Corwin (Whig) (starting December 16)
* Governor of Pennsylvania: David R. Porter (Democratic)
* Governor of Rhode Island: Samuel Ward King (Rhode Island)
* Governor of South Carolina:
* until April 7: Patrick Noble (Democratic)
* April 7-December 9: Barnabas Kelet Henagan (Democratic)
* starting December 9: John Peter Richardson II (Democratic)
* Governor of Tennessee: James K. Polk (Democratic)
* Governor of Vermont: Silas H. Jennison (Whig)
* Governor of Virginia: David Campbell (Democratic) (until March 31), Thomas Walker Gilmer (Whig) (starting March 31)
* Lieutenant governors
* Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut: Charles Hawley (Whig)
* Lieutenant Governor of Indiana: David Hillis (Whig) (until December 9), Samuel Hall (Whig) (starting December 9)
* Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: Stinson Anderson (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky: vacant (until September 2), Manlius Valerius Thomson (political party unknown) (starting September 2)
* Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts: George Hull (political party unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of Michigan: Edward Mundy (Democratic) (until month and day unknown), James Wright Gordon (Whig) (starting month and day unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of Missouri: Franklin Cannon (Democratic) (until November 16), Meredith Miles Marmaduke (Democratic) (starting November 16)
* Lieutenant Governor of New York: Luther Bradish (Whig)
* Lieutenant Governor of Rhode Island: vacant (until month and day unknown), Byron Diman (political party unknown) (starting month and day unknown)
* Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina:
* until April 7: Barnabas Kelet Henagan (Democratic)
* April 7-December 9: vacant
* starting December 9: William K. Clowney (Democratic)
* Lieutenant Governor of Vermont: David M. Camp (Whig)

## Events

* January 13–14 – The steamship Lexington burns and sinks in icy waters, 4 miles off the coast of Long Island; 139 die, only 4 survive.
* January 19 – Captain Charles Wilkes circumnavigates Antarctica, claiming what becomes known as Wilkes Land for the United States.
* March 4 – Alexander S. Wolcott and John Johnson open their "Daguerreian Parlor" on Broadway (Manhattan), the world's first commercial photography portrait studio.
* March 9 – The Wilmington and Raleigh Railroad is completed from Wilmington, North Carolina to Weldon, North Carolina. At 161.5 miles, it was the world's longest railroad at the time.
* April – The Raleigh and Gaston Railroad is completed from Raleigh, North Carolina to near Weldon, North Carolina.
* May 7 – The Great Natchez Tornado: A massive tornado strikes Natchez, Mississippi during the early afternoon hours. Before it is over, 317 people are killed and 109 injured. It is the second deadliest tornado in U.S. history.
* November 7 – U.S. presidential election, 1840: William Henry Harrison defeats Martin Van Buren.

### Ongoing

* Second Seminole War (1835–1842)

## Births

* January 1 – Patrick Walsh, Irish-born U.S. Senator from Georgia from 1894 to 1895 (died 1899)
* January 29 – Henry H. Rogers, financier (died 1909)
* February 4 – Hiram Stevens Maxim, firearms inventor (died 1916)
* February 9 – William T. Sampson, U.S. Navy admiral (died 1902)
* March 5 – Constance Fenimore Woolson, fiction writer and poet (died 1894)
* April 28 – Caroline Shawk Brooks, sculptor (died 1913)
* May 1 – Cynthia S. Burnett, educator, temperance reformer, and newspaper editor (died 1932)
* May 4 – George Gray, U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1885 to 1899 (died 1925)
* June 3 – Michael O'Laughlen, conspirator in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865 (died 1867)
* June 6 – William Dudley Chipley, railroad tycoon and statesman (died 1897)
* June 14 – William F. Nast, attaché, railroad executive and inventor (died 1893)
* June 27 – Alpheus Beede Stickney, railroad executive (died 1916)
* July 10 – Esther G. Frame, Quaker minister and evangelist (died 1920)
* July 21 – Christian Abraham Fleetwood, Union Army 4th Colored Infantry Regiment soldier and Medal of Honor recipient (died 1914)
* August 25 – George C. Magoun, railroad executive (died 1893)
* August 28 – Ira D. Sankey, gospel singer and composer (died 1908)
* September 10 – William B. Avery, Union Army soldier and Medal of Honor recipient (died 1894)
* September 22 – Philip G. Shadrach, Union Army soldier and Medal of Honor recipient (died 1862)
* September 22 – D. M. Canright, Seventh-day Adventist minister and author, later one of the church's severest critics (died 1919)
* September 27 – Alfred Thayer Mahan, U.S. Navy admiral, geostrategist and historian (died 1914)
* September 23 – Simon B. Conover, U.S. Senator from Florida from 1873 to 1879 (died 1908)
* October 1 – Anthony Higgins, U.S. Senator from Delaware from 1889 to 1895 (died 1912)
* October 24 – Eliza Pollock, archer (died 1919)
* November 24 – John Brashear, astronomer (died 1920)
* Earliest probable date – Crazy Horse (Tȟašúŋke Witkó), Chief of the Oglala Lakota (killed 1877)

## Deaths

* March 11 – George Wolf, politician (born 1777)
* March 23 – William Maclure, geologist (born 1763 in Scotland; died in Mexico)
* April 7 – Thaddeus Betts, U.S. Senator from Connecticut from 1839 to 1840 (born 1789)
* August 10 – Seymour Brunson, early Mormon convert (born 1798)
* August 27 – William Kneass, second Chief Engraver of the United States Mint from 1824 to 1840 (born 1781)
* September 14 – Joseph Smith Sr., 1st Presiding Patriarch of the Latter Day Saint movement (born 1771)
* September 18 – Constantine Samuel Rafinesque, French polymath (born 1783 in the Ottoman Empire)
* June 14 – Anson Brown, lawyer and U.S. Representative from New York from 1839 to 1840 (born 1800)